Social Entrepreneurship:
The Friction

Doing Good V.S. Making Money

This might be an interresting topic. Especially since this was the topic of our workshop and a returning topic at the summit. A lot of people had this on their mind. For various reasons.
One could be a social entrepreneur struggling with turning the project or business profitable, making money.
Another could be an entrepreneur trying to find his or her own role in being more social responsible.
For me using labels as such feels strange at one hand because it feels necessary, especially in order to connect to the outside world. I feel that Social Entrpreneurship is already an outdated label. Eventhough when I try to explain KaosPilots, using our taglines and buzzwords (haven't been able to find a right translation in dutch though), not a whole lot of people will even have the slightest idea of what I am talking about.
At the other hand, the moment that we are presenting ourselves as being outside of the box, we are labelling ourselves in such a way that we are putting ourselves in a certain box.
Here is something that I've got issues with. Saying that you are open minded but labelling, defining and therefore confining things just in order to have things making more sense to ourselves, to able to grasp things. It just doesn't fly with me.

The Summit made me think about a lot of things. I came to be inspired and got completely blown away. It feels so good to see and realise that there are so many inspiring people and projects out there. It made me blush, laugh, feel ashamed but mostly humble.
I got a confirmation of what I'm doing this for.
When I was interviewed by Barry Crisp to give my one-word-defenition of Social Entrepreneurship the first thing that came to mind was SEXY.
It is sexy, it is something that makes me tick. But why being so hung up on these labels? Why label ourselves in such a way?

I get enthousiastic because I simply just do.
When you are a social entrepreneur , but you fail to make any money, perhaps you're just not that good of an entrepreneur. When you are doing good and making a difference, however small it might be, I get intrigued. But when you fail to sustain it, I get bored.
When you are an entrepreneur and you are turning nothing into something, I get intrigued again. When you are having one hell of a turnover, just by doing bussiness, I get bored again.
Therefore I was so happy to talk to someone like Matt Williams, who claimed to be a kapitalist while being an old lefty. He said to me: "I think that I've been invited in order to bring in a balance."
KaosPilots brings forward as one of her six values Balance, mostly in a spiritual way. In order to work from the head, the heart and the hands, there must be a balance.
My balance would be in acknowledging the rest of my world, also the non-social responsible enteprises. Since I am living and work in the real world, I will have to deal with it.
How on earth can I be able to expand myself as a person, when I not even open for such things?
Why are there so many people seeing corporate life just as suits?
While a lot of "corporate people" who I've met were even more creative and open-minded than some of the artists that I've met. For me it feels that we are all just artists trying to give shape to life in our own way.



At the summit there were a lot of people looking for a balance between being an entrepreneur and being social responsible.

As a KaosPilot, I am trying to find a balance between being an entrepreneur while being social responsible, being creative and being innovative.

While at the same time I'm in a country where there will be a whole army of people stating: "I am an entrepreneur in order to survive."